And You Will Never Find Peace
by LetTheFireRage
Summary: The only ones not haunted by the ghosts of the past are the ghosts themselves. (Five stories about five people of the Revolution: The Soldier, The Healer, The Casualty, The Leader, The Observer.)
1. The Soldier

A/N: Hi! This is my first Hunger Games fanfic, so I'm really nervous. But I had this idea, and it just wouldn't leave my head, so I had to write it down. English is not my mother tongue so, please, if there are any mistakes, kindly point them out to me, and I'll fix them.

This is the first story among five I have planned. I thought about different characters and their feelings during the war (and the situations that led to it), and then this came about - I decided to write a story with basically five different points of view. I hope the characters have stayed in character. I tried. Also, if I should put any trigger warnings, please tell me. :)

Well, without further ado, I present to you - The Soldier.

* * *

 _Arms wide open, I stand alone_

 _I'm no hero, and I'm not made of stone_

 _Right or wrong – I can hardly tell_

 _I'm on the wrong side of heaven_

 _And the righteous side of hell_

Five Finger Death Punch – Wrong Side of Heaven

* * *

Gale was born with blood boiling in his veins and an understanding that the world he lived in was _unfair,_ and that this accursed life was not what it was supposed to be. For years, he had kept his raging fire tamed, never letting anyone – except for a girl he believed possessed the same kind of fire – see the inferno burning in his soul. For years he had poured icy water over his tattered, used up body, trying (and failing) to put it out. For years, he had struggled with the oppressive ways of his country's government and the belief that he was _meant for something more_. Until he'd finally gotten the chance to prove it.

And who else would it be that would grant him that possibility but Katniss, the girl he knew was on fire before anybody else did, his partner, his friend, _the girl he loved_.

How every piece of his being wept when she did what no one else had ever done before. He wept because of grief, pride, _fear_. She was such a reckless, selfless girl, one that would do _anything_ for her baby sister, even jump straight to her own death. She was a hunter, though. She'd be okay. She would win, and return to him, and he'd tell her the words he didn't get to say when those damned men in white took him away from her. The words that stupid Merchant had so easily said – no, not those words _exactly_ , but the sentiment was clear – in front of the entire nation.

It was a ploy, Gale had told himself, and he had to hold on to that thought every time their lips connected in that stupid cave, or in the moment when it really seemed that Katniss, _his Katniss_ , had been ready to throw her life away because she couldn't keep the baker's son (he had felt so betrayed, though the logical part of him knew he had no right to, because, after all, the two of them never _said anything_ to each other). In the end, it really had been a ploy – but how much of it, no one knew.

* * *

When she had returned, Gale was so confused. It was her, but she was different. He could still recognize her, but there were parts of her that were new and unknown to him. And he used to believe he would always know her better than anyone.

She and the Merchant had obviously had some sort of falling out, and it had given him hope, but she'd crushed it almost immediately when she made it clear that it was _complicated_ , that she didn't love the boy, but she cared _deeply_ for him, and Gale had realized her sentiments towards him were exactly the same. So he'd pushed aside the talk of what they were (for a while), and instead focused on the rebellion she had started.

It was unintentional, she'd said, but Gale believed that wasn't completely true – she might not have done it consciously, but she must have known, somewhere deep inside her mind, what would have happened after she'd buried that little girl, after she'd raised those berries to her mouth. She had to have realized it was a form of rebellion against the Capitol, against the unjust system that led twenty-three children to slaughter each year. But she was stubborn, said she only wanted to live peacefully, that her only concern now was Prim, and that she didn't have any intentions of further feeding the flames. He just had to be patient with her – she'd lived through such a horror – and eventually, she'd see the truth, see the magnitude of her actions, and realize what kind of power she held in her hands, and what she could do with it.

She'd asked him to runaway with her, though, and every thought he had of fighting had flown out of his mind, because Catnip had chosen _him_ , and he loved her, and he could finally say those words to her. But any hope he had was crushed (yet again), only seconds later, and when she had admitted that everything had already started, the rebellion, _the war_ , he forgot about his feelings for her (no, pushed them aside again), decided to stay and make all kinds of trouble.

If him being beaten to death was what she'd needed to finally decide to rebel, then so be it.

* * *

The Quarter Quell announcement had come, and she was taken from him yet again. By then, Gale was furious, and he knew that nothing could help him quench the flames now. He cursed himself, his inability to protect her, and spent his days desperate, angry, almost mad. He had helped them prepare, her and those two other Victors, but every day he had been furious at the fact that Katniss was determined to save the boy, not herself, and he'd probably been even _more_ furious at the fact that the boy was trying his hardest to save _her_ , so Gale couldn't hate him, because they had the same goal, and he would do anything he could to help (even smile for that stupid picture that had to be taken for who knows what reason). So they left, and he, _the one left behind_ – as always, it seemed – could only hold his breath and put his faith into a boy he wanted to hate.

But then she'd done it again. And now, even if what she had done in her first Games was just a desperate attempt to survive (and save a boy Gale – at the time – had thought wasn't really worth saving), what she did in her second Games could pass for nothing, but an act of defiance. So the moment he saw her draw her arrow to the fake sky above her head, Gale was ready to fight. He'd saved those he could save (not enough, _never_ enough), and when the soldiers from Thirteen came to lead them far away from the wreckage of what had once been their home, Gale joined their forces without a second thought.

* * *

It hurt him to see her so broken, when they'd saved her and she had learned that not only was her home gone, but the one she had desperately tried to save ( _yet again_ ) was not there with her. But Gale had always believed in Katniss, believed in her fire, and he knew that it would be just a matter of time before she joined him in the fight, not as an ordinary soldier, but as their leader, as the light guiding their way. So what if she had her conditions? Of course she had them - she was Katniss Everdeen, and Katniss Everdeen _always_ put the safety of her loved ones before anything else. If she wanted that stupid boy back, hell, he'd go right into the lion's den and save him! Why she needed him, Gale would never know, because she was much stronger than _both_ of them, but at the moment that wasn't even important. If the only way Katniss would look at him, _truly_ look at him, was to bring the other one back, he'd do it. He'd do anything for her and the rebellion.

But he should have known that that was a stupid idea. _Of course_ the Capitol had messed him up. _Of course_ they had turned him into a weapon against her. Why anyone would think they wouldn't do that (why _he himself_ didn't think they would do that) was beyond him. And now he'd probably lost his only chance at a fair game against the damned _mutt_ (because that was what he was now, a Capitol creation, and Gale felt a strange sadness and a weird feeling close to longing for his old rival). Now Katniss could never be his. Now she would forever live in the past, unless _he_ recovered by some miracle. That's why he'd let it go (for a while, again, again, _again_ ), and she'd let it go, and they focused on the more pressing matters.

(She refused to let Gale kill him and end his, hers, _the mutt's_ misery once and for all.)

* * *

Slowly, Gale had come to realize how different the two of them actually were. He'd been noticing it for some time, but he tried to turn a blind eye to it, to ignore it, to convince himself it was all just temporary, that the war was turning them into something they weren't. But the more time had passed, the more Katniss seemed to think of him as someone cruel. It hurt and Gale retaliated by thinking of her as someone too stubborn, too idealistic (no doubt under _his_ influence), and too unwilling to make a few sacrifices for the greater good.

The brief moments when they would work together like they used to, when they were just hunting partners in the woods outside of the fence of District 12, came and went in life threatening situations that called for reflexive actions, and Gale wasn't sure whether he should have been happy they could still work in sync, or should've mourned the fact that they only seemed to do it when neither of them was thinking.

* * *

…

That day, it all had ended.

The two of them had left the shelter together, a team again ( _a team for the last time_ ), and they braved the enemy's streets with one goal in their minds – to kill the man who had taken so much from her, from him, from everyone. As they advanced, they saw the true horror of war: innocent people on the enemy's side; children lost in the hail of bullets; people struggling to survive.

Still, they had fought. He had saved her - but then it all fell apart. She'd broken her promise to him ( _she should have killed him then_ , Gale would sometimes think). He'd broken his promise to her - he had failed to save her sister, the number one thing she'd always expected from him. Worse yet, he – unintentionally, _unwillingly_ – helped lead her to her demise. Katniss couldn't forgive him. And if she ever forgave him, Gale knew, she could never forget it. So it all had ended. The rebellion, the war, the complex relationship the two of them had formed years ago, when misfortune destroyed their innocence and lead them to each other; and he grieved.

* * *

But she wasn't fair. Gale loved Prim. She'd been like his sister. He had taken care of her, he'd saved her several times, he had never, _ever_ wanted her to die. He wanted her to live in the new world he, Katniss and all the other rebels, _Prim herself_ helped build. He wanted her to smile freely. To live a life she wasn't allowed to before. Simply, he had wanted her to be happy, had wanted his siblings to be happy, without counting the seconds to the next bad thing that would happen.

That was why, even years later, her beautiful blue eyes and the wistful smile of a child forced to grow up too soon would haunt his dreams, sometimes even his waking moments. He would hear screams of children, and would feel their blood all over his tattered, used up body. That blood, he'd think grievously, was what would finally extinguish the fiery inferno that had burned him down to his very bones.

Gale was born with blood boiling in his veins, but he believed he would die with nothing but ashes in the shell of his skin.

* * *

 _A/N: I believe that Gale was hurt by Prim's death almost as much as Katniss, and it honestly pains me when I see him portrayed as a monster. He was just a child, like all of them, and the war had changed him just like it changed the others._

 _The relationship between him and Katniss always reminded me of an endless loop - one moment they were friends, the other angry at each other, then they were something close to lovers, and it all played out in the same way again and again and again. I think he was really frustrated by that, but he tried his best not to let it show._

 _I would really like to hear your opinions on this story, and if you have an advice or anything like that for me, I'll gladly hear it!_


	2. The Healer

_I still remember the world_

 _From the eyes of a child_

 _Slowly those feelings_

 _Were clouded by what I know now_

Evanescence - Field of Innocence

* * *

 _Birth:_

Primrose Everdeen was, even more than her older sister Katniss, a symbol of love that transcended boundaries. Born with her mother's soft features of a Merchant - blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin – but undoubtedly a part of the Seam – coal sticking to every pore of her body, always more hungry than full – she had always been the thinnest thread that connected those two otherwise completely separated parts of the poor District she lived in. Always cheerful, smiling and full of love, she was impossible to hate. Seamers looked past her different looks, and Merchants looked past her complicated origin, and they all smiled when this little sunshine girl smiled. She was a favorite among the entire District, and her mother, father and sister all adored her.

She was compassionate to her very core, and it was clear as a day that she had inherited her mother's gift for healing - and then transcended it. She loved animals, and animals loved her. She nursed them back to health, shared with them what little she had, and never looked away from a creature in need. She acted the same towards humans (even if they sometimes – _rarely_ but still _sometimes_ – paid her back with hurtful words and looks full of hate), and she always knew that when she grew up, she would become a healer, someone who would always try their best to help the others, no matter who they were.

* * *

 _Initiation:_

After her father's – her sweet, kind father who always sang her lullabies – death, Prim, not even eight at the time, was faced with more misfortune that she could, in her young, sweet mind, ever imagine was possible. Her family was starving, her mother gone to the world and her sister forced to become the head of the house, even if she herself was barely four years older than Prim. She watched her sister struggle, trying very hard (but _failing, failing, failing_ ) not to become an even bigger burden than she already felt she was, to help in any way she could, so that her broken family (two people she loved more than anyone and anything else in the world) could learn not only to _live_ again, but to _love_ again as well.

Eventually, her sister came home with a bread, and later a dandelion, and somehow those two things, that she never dared ask her sister where they came from, became the beacon of hope, and Katniss started hunting, and Prim started gathering edible plants, and little by little, they recovered, though Prim's sensitive heart noticed a rift between her mother and her sister that neither of them seemed to be able to overcome.

They survived that way for years (didn't remember how to live, didn't remember how to love), until another tragedy knocked on their doors and threatened to ruin them for good this time. Katniss never let her take a tessarae, saying it was too risky - the less slips she had, the better her chances - but the odds apparently weren't in Prim's favor; so of course, after her name had been pulled out of that dreadful bowl (and her heart stopped), her courageous, selfless sister had to volunteer for her (and her heart stopped for the second time), and no matter how hard she struggled, no matter how loudly she screamed, Katniss was ripped apart from Prim, and the only hope the younger girl had left was that her sister would make good on the promise she gave to her before she left to suffer through the worst games humanity had ever invented.

She, her mother, Gale, and thousands of others watched the Games with bated breaths, wondering what the fate held for the "star-crossed lovers" of District 12. Prim knew her sister better than Katniss believed she did, and she didn't, for a second, believe that Katniss was _in love_ with Peeta - though it was more than obvious that the poor boy (the one who gave them hope and the strength to survive all those years ago, she'd learned) was blindly infatuated with her. However, Prim also knew that Katniss cared for him, deeply, the way she cared for her, for their mother, for Gale, and she wondered did her stubborn sister realize it, or was she still trying to deny it and mask it under the pretense that she was paying back the debt from so long ago.

When her sister returned from the Games, alive but changed, something in Prim had started to change too, and she wondered, briefly and without much grief, where did the little girl who let her older sister volunteer for her disappear.

* * *

 _Consummation:_

The air around Katniss was now constantly stiff, she was always looking behind her shoulders, and the quietest of sounds could make her flinch. Prim hated to see her this way, but she knew that there was nothing much she could do – only offer her undying love and support and hope that it would be enough. However, the damage was done, and now everyone was different, and the tension was ever-present in the air, and they all waited to see who would snap first and let the fire consume them all.

When Katniss was sent to the Games for the second time, Prim actually believed it would be _her_ , because she felt an emotion she'd never felt before – rage – engulf her.

Her mother was in denial, Gale was cursing and blaming himself, and Peeta, of course, was already working on sacrificing himself and saving Katniss, so none of them seemed to be able to focus on that one emotion each of them felt. Prim, however, had nothing to stop her, and the rage burned and boiled inside of her until the moment when her sister blew up the arena, and the Capitol blew up their home, and these helpless people needed a healer, someone to put out the fires, rather than feed them.

Prim locked her rage away, somewhere deep inside of her, and gladly accepted the calling she believed she was meant for since she had been nothing more than a naïve child.

Seeing her sister so out of it, when for so long she was the rock-solid person Prim could always lean on, urged her to become what Katniss had once been - the head of their family - and the seemingly constant stream of patients forced Prim to once and for all shed the skin of an innocent little girl she had been (it felt like) centuries ago. But it wasn't just Katniss that was suffering. The younger Hawthorne brothers struggled to be of any kind of help. Their older brother sprouted gray hair at twenty years old. Haymitch fought against the overwhelming need to drown himself in the sweet oblivion of alcohol. And Peeta, sweet, kind Peeta who would bake them warm and delicious bread, lost his mind (no, _they_ took it), and was now fighting against himself and the urge to kill who he once desperately tried to save.

Still, the only thing that Prim could do was let them fight their battles, encourage them, and wait for their return so she could heal them once they came back.

* * *

 _Repose:_

Fate, however, had other plans. President Coin had apparently been so impressed with Prim, she decided to send her to the front lines, to the heart of the Capitol, _to Snow's mansion_ , so she could use her talents and save those poor people, battered, bruised and broken in the cold winter. It would also boost the morale of the soldiers, she had said. Because Prim was the Mockingjay's sister, and anything to do with the Mockingjay was needed now, more than ever. People didn't know whether she was alive or dead ( _but of course she was alive_ ), and they were losing hope, but " _we are_ so close _to victory"_ , and we couldn't allow _anyone_ to lose hope. So Prim agreed, against her better judgment, against her mother's wishes, and, most importantly, against that gut feeling telling her that what she was doing was bad and stupid.

They gave her a day off, and she spent it with her mother. They braided each other's hair, and they talked about happy memories, and the people they loved, about Katniss, and how, when they both came home, the three of them would finally work out their problems, and they would be a real family again. They'd help Katniss heal, and they'd thank Gale for everything he had done for them, and they'd save Peeta from the darkness of his own mind and Haymitch from the temptation of alcohol, and everything, _everything_ would be okay.

When the time for goodbyes came, her mother started crying, and hugged Prim tightly. Prim hugged back with just as much strength, while a little voice inside her head, which she tried hard to ignore, told her that this would be the last time she would see her. She kissed her friends, ruffled Haymitch's unruly hair (an action that ruffled his feathers as well), and left to help the victims of this war they fought so they could finally achieve peace.

* * *

 _Death:_

She boarded the hovercraft with dozens of other healers, and already she had felt tricked somehow – why, she couldn't quite pinpoint, but she also couldn't shake the feeling, so she spent the rest of the trip in silence. The other medics all seemed much older than her, and much more experienced, and a few even cast curious or disbelieving glances her way, so she kept her head hung low, and in her mind sang all of the lullabies she could remember her father and her sister sing.

They all looked so proud, knowing what they were doing was right, knowing they were saving lives, rather than taking them, but Prim felt there was something sinister hiding in this group of people, something wicked that would befall them all, and once again she heard that horrible voice in her head that told her she was heading straight to her demise.

Seconds, minutes, hours had passed, until finally, they could see the outskirts of the Capitol, once a lavish city, now a grey ruin, and Prim knew that a part of it was caused by _them_ , by the rebels, and for a millisecond the thought that they weren't that much better than their enemy passed through her head, before she shook herself out of her reverie and reminded herself that they were fighting for _good_. The people, who had been chattering mindlessly until now fell silent, and a look of pure determination settled on everyone's faces. Prim closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and fell into her healer mode, forgetting about everything else.

As they were nearing the mansion, the first thing they noticed were scared children, huddled together - out of cold, or fear, or probably both. Then, the second thing they noticed was a Capitol hovercraft sending small silver parachutes containing what was probably food, and the children raised their tiny palms to grab a package for themselves. Prim's heart sank as she realized that the sight, the look on their faces was too familiar - it reminded her of the starved children in Twelve, reminded her of _herself_ \- but before she could think of anything else, the parachutes exploded, stunning everyone around her and pulling the breath out of their lungs.

The cruel world seemed to have slowed down while Prim and all the other stunned medics processed what had just happened right before their eyes.

What they did next was only logical – they climbed down the ladders, into the pile of dead, screaming, wailing children – and did what was their job. They searched for survivors, they bandaged them, cleaned their wounds. Prim put her jacket over a shaking little boy's shoulders. When she heard the all too familiar voice calling her, Prim's heart started beating wildly in pure joy, and she turned her head, and she called for her sister, and-

…

The last thought that had passed through Prim's head, milliseconds before her death, was that she would be the only one to find peace.

* * *

 _A/N: I love Primrose, especially the fact that she matured so fast so she could help her sister. Maybe her being the casualty made more sense (you know, because she died and all), but I have other plans for the casualty, and her being the healer fits, in any case._

 _The five stages (birth, initiation, consummation, repose, death) were taken from the meaning of the flower primrose - the five petals represented five stages of life. Also, the primary meaning of the flower is_ youth _, hence the song chosen - we are all innocent during our childhood, but some, like Prim, lose their innocence sooner._

 _Yes, there will be a song at the beginning of every chapter._


End file.
